The 6 biggest misconceptions everyone has about hair loss

Don't fall for the myths.
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Hair loss is a tricky beast to tackle. Part of the reason for that is that there is a lot of misinformation surrounding the topic.

In an effort to dispel some of this confusion, we've rounded up a few of the biggest hair loss myths we see perpetrated time and time again.

Here are six of them.

Hair loss is:

Caused by malnutrition. In the Western world, it's extremely hard to be so deficient in vitamins that your hair starts falling out. "To lose hair from vitamin deficiency, you'd have to be so deficient in some vitamin that you'd have other problems other than your hair," Dr. William Yates of Dr. Yates Hair Science told us.

Caused by excessive shampoo or hair product use, or other damage to your hair like wearing hats. Many men assume that the friction caused by wearing hats can lead hair to fall out, but that's just not true, according to Men's Journal and US News. If any hairs do fall out while you're wearing a hat, it will likely be temporary. Your biggest concern here should be damaging the hair strands themselves, which can make any thinning more apparent.

Passed from your mother's side. Actually, hair loss genetics are a little more complicated than that. Though the X chromosome from the mother does carry the primary genetic factor, recent research suggests that baldness in your father may indicate that you, too, will start to bald, according to US News.